


August

by ChippewaFalls



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, Drama, F/M, Harry Potter Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28155768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChippewaFalls/pseuds/ChippewaFalls
Summary: So much for summer love and saying us, cause you weren't mine to lose.
Relationships: Scorpius Malfoy/Original Female Character(s), Scorpius Malfoy/Rose Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	August

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by Taylor Swift's song of the same title and written for a couple challenges on the FFT forums; TS8 at Midnight Challenge and for the We Are Never Getting Back Together Challenge. Hope you enjoy!

The moonlight was pouring into the windows, casting shadows from branches that danced across the floor. I was mesmerized by their fluid choreography. Swaying this way and then that. Their pace speeding and then slowing again, taking their rhythmic cues from the breeze. Only a night before we were tangled together, dancing as carelessly as these shadows.  
  
  
Finally I tore myself away from the spinning wisps to look his way, thinking how distant that night felt staring at him now.  
  
  
I watched his lips as he continued speaking, giving further explanation. Though all my mind wanted to remember was how they once nuzzled at the bottom of my ear. How they once whispered for me to stay. The irony caught in my throat and I inhaled sharply.

I closed my eyes, squeezing them tightly together. Cursing myself for letting feelings get involved as they had.  
  
  
Because I knew enough about the man who sat next to me in that tiny pub that first night. I recognized his gruff tone the moment he told the bartender his order. It didn’t matter that it had been years since our paths crossed, I knew where he kept his heart - everyone did. 

But they were over now. So he told the bartender to leave the bottle with him. And then he raised it up and we toasted to endings, and then to new beginnings. 

I opened my eyes again, a part of me hoping to stare out at the ocean. Waking up still tasting tequila and letting these past months slowly fade away from my memory like a dream you’re trying to remember as it slips further and further away.

“You’re going back to her then?”

He leaned forward on his elbows and let his head fall into his hands, not able to meet my eyes when he told me the truth he’d known all summer: that this conversation was always inevitable. 

“She’s been hurt, Beck.” He lifted his head from his hands, not caring that his usually slicked back hair was now hanging in his face, “I have to go see her.”  
  
  
His eyes, even hidden behind the blonde strands of hair, were more telling than his words could ever have been. Our time together wasn’t a fantasy or some illusion I’d whipped up in my daydreaming mind, but it hadn’t been real either. Because his heart had always been with her.  
  
  
And I knew he was right to go to her. To care for someone in pain, asking that he be at her side. 

But I couldn’t let go of the concurrent fact that now I was in pain. And I wanted him at my side.  
  


I wasn’t one to be at a loss for words, yet there I sat, stoic and silent. Like the statue that stood in the fountain near the center of town. Worn from time, pieces chipped away from exposure to the world, watching so many happy people passing by each day, but my own expression frozen in place. 

“I’m sorry.” He finally brushed his hair back so I could see the subtle markers of pain in his expression, but it only made it all worse.

Because maybe he did feel something for me, and was choosing her anyways. Was that worse? Was there a worse and a better in a situation like this? Or was it all shite?  
  
  
My pain came out as laughter and I bit my bottom lip to compose myself, “Fuck your sorry, Scorpius.” Then I stood to leave, refusing to be further confused by his glances, “You did this.”

“You did this too!” He shouted after me, taking hold of my wrist to keep me from getting any further away. “I didn’t go looking for us, ya know.”

_Us._

The word tore through me. Had there ever really been an us? There was certainly him. His square jaw that tightened when I teased him about his posh accent. His pale complexion that never took in the sun no matter how many days we spent laying out in the sand.  
  
  
And there was me. Tracing senseless shapes and cursive letters across his back while he slept and I tried to shut out the noise of the world and do the same. Tangling in his bedsheets and telling myself not to get it twisted in my head. There couldn’t be an us. Not with her in the back of his mind. 

“I don’t know that I’ll get back with her.”  
  
  
I shook my hand from his, not needing a reminder of what his touch felt like. 

“Yes you do...”

I tore away from him and pushed my way out the front door. How strange it felt, to know only weeks before we were pressed up against it, too desperate for one another to find my keys.  
  
I inhaled deeply once I felt my feet touch the sands and let the salt air fill my lungs, purifying me with each breath. The ocean had always been such a calming force in my life, a totem of freedom that I clung to. I would envision myself drifting amongst the waves, dancing freely like the shadows from before. 

Now, however, all I felt was how the ground shifted unsteadily beneath each of my steps. All I envisioned were the waves tousling me about without care if I was able to keep my head above the water. And the salt didn’t feel like it was healing me, but burning me from the inside out.

Because I knew enough about the man who sat next to me in that tiny pub that first night. I knew where he kept his heart, everyone did. 

And I fell for him all the same.

The pit in my stomach drug me down into the sand and I pulled my knees to my chest. I felt my chest heave and shuddered, trying to stave off the tears. I wasn’t wasting them on him. 

I inhaled deeply again and brushed my blonde mess of hair to one shoulder so the breeze could kiss across my collarbone. 

I wanted to feel the coolness of the night air, to take in every sensation. I wanted to remember everything about this moment because I knew he wouldn’t. 

Our months together were going to slip away into an anecdote he tells his friends when they ask how he coped with his breakup. I would be a secret he downplays to the woman he truly loves when he asks her to take him back. A mistake he feels guilt about until it fades away into that one summer, those few months, that one moment he broke that one girl's heart. 

This night would fade for me too. Fade from shadows and moonlight to wondering why I wasn’t enough. I would think back on this summer and remember how much I wanted him and how much he seemed to want me too. I’ll remember thinking that maybe that could be enough. That maybe we had a chance.

I’ll toast to endings and to new beginnings. Knowing I didn’t actually lose anything when you went to be with her. Because you were never really mine to lose. 


End file.
